Hoping to Shrug

Though it seems like I've been here for ages already, it has only been nine days. Time flies when you are having fun, and it's been a blast being here and serving with Josiah and Lauren. We laugh a lot--my English friends would say "we get on like a house on fire." Or something like that.

Since my last post, I've been waist-deep in ministry preparing for Holiday Club (English VBS) as well as various talks and messages. Just last night, I taught the weekly Bible Study on the suffering of God. Tonight we taught little ones about the temptation of Jesus and how memorizing Scripture can help us learn to do right and please God. This weekend, I will be giving a message at a nearby church--Kew Church, in Southport--as a guest speaker in their evening service.

It's been a full week. A week in which I realize my deep need for Christ to control my life and be my center, a week I realize that it is how absolutely necessary it is for me to abide in Him. This is because I have, of myself, nothing to offer these people whom I dearly love.

I do not have Words of Life--I have only halted speech.

I do not dispense the Water of Life--the water I keep is that which does not truly quench thirst.

Indeed, I do not have much to say. And when I do speak, I most often mis-speak, saying something I wish I had not, something false, something wrong.

It is by the sheer, overwhelming grace of God that what I have to say is of any benefit to others. It is the scandalous folly of the Gospel which unleashes the Holy Spirit's power through such a vessel as I. It is because of God's bounty and riches that I have even been permitted to open my mouth to His people.

And I am humbled. I have developed already a clear sense of the fact that I am not needed, but God chooses to use me so that His power can be wondrously demonstrated, first and foremost to me. It is God's gift to me--prone to pride and a high estimation of my abilities--that the parts of my ministry that have had the greatest effect on people were parts that I did not intend or seek to do. It is God's gift to me that I can look back on my ministry and shrug, not seeing how what I did had any affect on people, but seeing that God has used me in some way to advance the Gospel.

My hope for this summer is that I will walk away and shrug, unable to say that what I did affected people. I want to shrug and say, I don't know why that person was so greatly encouraged--it must have been Christ. This is why I must abide with constancy and steadfastness, fighting to remain in His presence.

And the funny thing is, He gives me the strength to stay with Him in the first place. After all, it is He who holds my right hand, not the other way around.

"If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us."

--2 Corinthians 4:7 (MSG)

Studying Suffering for the Glory of God

Today is Saturday, which means the first week of the internship is down with seven more to go. Time has moved so quickly, but each day has been packed full of activity and ministry. It's been a blast.

This summer, the lion's share of ministry will be devoted to the study of suffering. It is a topic I am supremely passionate about--over the past six months I have come to a very clear recognition that my ministry is to be devoted to suffering people and seeking ways to specifically address the issues they are facing.

Suffering is a worthy topic of study, because wimpy theology makes wimpy Christians. So, Christians who have a weak theology of suffering, a poor understanding of how God works in and uses suffering to His glory, will make for a wimpy Christian.

Thus, when suffering befalls the Christian, their faith crumbles because they do not understand God's purposes for their suffering. Thus, when they speak to other suffering Christians, they causes those believers emotional harm because they only offer trite platitudes and disregard their emotional pain. Thus, when they speak to the lost, they cannot articulate the Gospel's interpretation and understanding of evil.

Thus, my goal in teaching and studying suffering with Formby Baptist Church is to offer them lenses with which they can perceive and process their own suffering, so they in turn can shepherd the suffering well.

This Sunday, I will be preaching through the life of Joseph and what his sufferings and his perceptions of God teach us about how we can suffer. We will find that the story of Joseph offers emotional freedom and emotional protection to those who are suffering. We will also develop a basic understanding of God's interaction with evil. I'll post more on this later. Future sermons and talks will discuss the sufferings of Christ and Paul and evil's effect on the world.

God is for the suffering--He is with the suffering--and He comforts the suffering. Someone told me recently that, even though they may not know it, the children of God love the deep things of God. Suffering is profound and deep and great; but God is by far more profound, He is deeper and infinitely greater.

This summer, my prayer is that God would be glorified as we move from being overwhelmed by suffering and pain and evil, to being even more overwhelmed by God's greatness and glory.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

---2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Finally A Post

I've finally had a moment to blog since arriving here in Formby. We arrived a day later than expected, which is explained below. Last night was the first of many ministry opportunities, where I taught my first Bible study. Today, we had a meeting in the morning, I wrote my sermon for Sunday, and tonight is King's Kids. It's going to be a blast.

Here is a little post I wrote while sitting in the airport on Monday. It's a blast from the past, but since I wrote it, I'd still like to post it. Enjoy:

Current time: 11:24 a.m. Departure time: 7:30 p.m.

Right now, I’m sitting in the airport at Atlanta, underneath a dinosaur skeleton in a large glass-roofed sitting area. It looks a lot like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, except it’s way too small and has three fingers instead of two. All around me are comfortable couches and lounge chairs, so I’m sitting on a stone bench in the middle of them, waiting for some sorry sap to stand up and leave his chair to go to the bathroom or something so I can steal it from him.

I figure if I’m going to be here for eight hours, I should do so comfortably, right?

Yes, I am supposed to be in Formby right now. After a series of travel complications (Lauren was separated from her passport, which of course caused us a minor panic, not to mention the ominous ash cloud which was hovering over Manchester airport at the time), we decided to volunteer to take tonight’s flight and arrive on Tuesday instead of Monday. In exchange, we received $600 of travel voucher.

So, maybe it’s not all that bad. I mean $600 in free flights and a hotel room and free food in exchange for leaving a day late is not at all a bad deal. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to let the family picking us up at the airport know we wouldn’t be on our scheduled flight, so they waited for us at the airport for Lord-knows-how-long.

Hang on, somebody just left a couch and a chair with a nice big table in the middle. Have to walk across the way to grab it. Perfect for Bananagrams. Score.

Anyway, last night, Josiah, Lauren and I took a shuttle bus to the Days Inn on Phoenix Boulevard to stay the night. We watched a movie, ate vending machine popcorn and drank cans of soda. The hotel was nice—our rooms had the obligatory multi-colored comforters and we were given toiletries courtesy Delta airlines. We slept in and returned to the airport about eight hours early because the shuttle doesn’t run all day—we took the last one we could.

Because our flight doesn’t leave until 7:30 p.m. tonight, we have to wait until at least 1 p.m. local time to check in. With fountain Coke in one hand (one of my last sodas with high fructose corn syrup until July; the UK doesn’t use it in the products) and trashy action novel purchased in a nearby bookstore in the other (if I didn’t have something to read I would be miserable), I sit on my red, fake-leather throne, awaiting my coach to fly me across the heavenlies.

Lauren is trying to nap on the couch. Josiah is listening to music. I am writing. Waiting, waiting until we land on that distant shore and can have ourselves a good cup of tea and a good meal and a nice bed and clean clothes.

Until then, we wait. Don’t worry Formby; we’ll be there soon.

__________________________________________

In my next post, I'll explain what I'll be teaching through this summer and why I'm teaching it. So stay posted. Until then, I need to go hang out with some friends who are under the age of 10.

Meet the Team

After yet another long hiatus from blogging, I'm back, and this is the first of a long stream of posts that are sure to come over the next eight weeks.

I leave this Sunday (!) from Chicago O'Hare international airport. I can hardly believe it's here. It's hard to believe that it's been eight weeks since I was last in Formby, but it has sure been a sprint to get here. I just finished a paper and took a final exam this afternoon; today has been full of good-bye's and then it's off to the UK.

This summer, I will have the great honor of working with two good friends, Josiah and Lauren. Josiah is a graduating senior, studying Biblical Exposition in the Pastoral Studies department. He and I will be splitting preaching and teaching, along with co-leading every other activity with Lauren. Lauren is a senior Women's Ministry major. She will be leading a number of women's Bible studies, as well as doing pretty much everything else with Josiah and I.

I couldn't have asked for a better team to work with--I love these two and I am humbled to serve alongside such talented and gifted people. We laugh a lot together, and our gifts really complement one another's, so I am greatly looking forward to how God is going to use us in tandem to serve Formby.

Here are a few prayer requests:

---Safe travels. They are predicting that another ash cloud from the volcano in Iceland may cover Britain this weekend; if that's the case, we may be delayed from leaving on Monday.

---The first week of ministry. We're each moving from a hectic week of final exams and papers and moving out of our dorms--Josiah walks on Saturday, too. We're going to be tired from a long semester, but we'll need to dive right in. Pray that we have some time to close this chapter and begin the new one well before the ministry really takes off.

If all goes well, the next time I write, I will be across the pond. Thanks for your prayers and your support!